line forms outside the Cannabis Club on Main Street in Breckenridge on Jan. 1, 2014, the first day of recreational marijuana sales in Colorado. (Kathryn Scott Osler, Denver Post file)

Someday this will be a case study in business schools: the creation of a marijuana franchise starting with a lone store in a cute Victorian house on Main Street in Breckenridge. For viewers beyond Colorado, “High Profits” on CNN, an eight-part docu-series premiering April 19, may seem an outrageous curiosity. For locals accustomed to media scrutiny of the state’s legalized recreational weed industry, it’s just one more reality TV effort, hyped for suspense.

Brian Rogers and Caitlin McGuire the marijuana moguls who succeeded beyond their dreams by being early and betting on medical weed leading to recreational sales, come across as sincere, dedicated business people. Now in Steamboat Springs and Crested Butte as well as Breck (although exiled from Main Street), the business is booming.

CNN’s “High Profits”

Long lines outside the dispensary, piles and piles of cash inside, long shots of a vast grow house, local and national media tripping over each other to get the story, and town council debates about the propriety of marijuana in the tourist haven of Main Street…it’s all here. Locals have followed the story for years, starting well before Jan. 1, 2014, and legalization. Now it’s crafted into a suspenseful narrative by CNN with added silliness and humanizing elements — let’s watch a store manager get a tattoo! let’s see BCC co-owner McGuire bond with her mother and Rogers at home with their dog…

BCC co-owner Brian Rogers, photo provided by CNN.

The green rush continues. The upside potential for franchises is great, but there is equally great risk since weed remains illegal on the federal level. (See Forbes’ list of red flags for potential pot entrepreneurs.)

The Colorado weed story is obviously rich, and has been covered by all manner of news and documentary crews. But whether it’s deep enough to merit an extended series on the order of Anthony Bourdain’s smart “Parts Unknown” franchise for CNN is doubtful.

Colorado author Patricia Raybon, a Christian, and her youngest daughter Alana, a convert to Islam, will appear on NBC’s “Today” on Thursday, April 2, in a taped segment about reaching across the faith divide. Their appearance is tied to the April 28 release of their book, “Undivided: A Muslim Daughter, Her Christian Mother, Their Path to Peace” (HarperCollins Christian Publishing).

The segment with “Today” host Willie Geist was taped last week in Nashville where Alana, an elementary school teacher, lives with her husband and children. It includes footage shot at Denver’s historic Shorter Community A.M.E. Church, where Patricia has been an active member for 35 years.

Raybon, a former University of Colorado-Boulder journalism faculty member and a Denver Post staffer before that, now writes fulltime on matters of faith. Raybon’s previous books include My First White Friend and I Told the Mountain to Move.

Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny as FBI Agents Dana Scully and Fox Mulder on “The X-Files” original run. Photo courtesy of Fox.

Fox is reopening “The X-Files” for a limited run.

David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson will again bicker as FBI Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully investigating the unexplained, paranormal cases in the “X-Files” when the series returns for six episodes this summer on Fox.

Chris Carter, who created the hit series that finished its initial nine-year run 13 years ago, will return as creator-executive producer of the reboot. “I think of it as a 13-year commercial break,” Carter said in the Fox announcement. “The good news is the world has only gotten that much stranger, a perfect time to tell these six stories.”

For various reasons, limited-run series are appealing to networks, viewers, creators and talent. The “X-Files” reboot is slated for summer 2015, dates to be announced later. Spot the trend: “The X-Files” joins cult TV hits “24,” “Twin Peaks” and “Heroes,” lately resurrected as limited series.

“The Social Life” a new travel and food series on HLN, will focus on Boulder on March 17. The hook is the use of social media to find local curiosities, obscure favorites and insider advice on each location.

“The Social Life” is hosted by Ali Nejad, self-described travel junkie and foodie (and host of The Daily Share on HLN).

In Boulder, Ali checks out “the funky street performer scene,” a Tajikistani tea ceremony at Dushanbe Tea House, bouldering, organic lunch at Zeal, bon bons at Piece Love and Chocolate. He strikes a balance between outdoorsy hiking and exploring The Farm, a legal marijuana dispensary, where he expresses innocence and learns all about the legalities, strains and more. “Walk me through it,” he asks the budtender.

“It is a brave new world out here in Boulder!” He gives the 300 days of sunshine per year an endorsement.

Interestingly, when he asks the twitterverse to recommend the coolest place in Boulder, the result is perhaps unexpected: NCAR. He gets an educational tour of the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

Pushing further into original programming and documentary series, CNN will launch a new series with gifted social satirist W. Kamau Bell, “United Shades of America,” aiming to attract younger, broader audiences to the news network. Bell’s series will examine different subcultures across the country with provocative humor.

Additionally the network plans a documentary on “Steve Jobs: The Man In The Machine,” directed by Alex Gibney, and a documentary series, “The Race for the White House” produced and narrated by Kevin Spacey (who occupies a different White House on “House of Cards.”

If cashing in on the fictional Frank Underwood (Spacey) isn’t enough of a break from the network’s “all-news” format of the past, consider the announced addition of a “spiritual adventure series titled “Believer”” hosted by New York Times Best Selling author Reza Aslan. Sight unseen, it sounds like a step toward reality TV.

As previously announced, CNN is readying a Colorado-based series called “High Profits” for an April debut. The series chronicles efforts of Brian Rogers and Caitlin McGuire, owners of the Breckenridge Cannabis Club, to become the first ever “moguls of marijuana.”

The network will also seek to replicate the ratings success of “The Sixties” with a followup, “The Seventies,” from producers Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, this summer.

The Colorado Broadcasters Association awards named KUSA station of the year in its 2014 Awards of Excellence. This was the 16th consecutive win for KUSA in the category. On the radio side, KYGO was awarded station of the year.

“Murder in Aspen” is a retelling of the Pfister murder case which drew national attention in 2014. The Pfister family was well known in Aspen, Nancy as a socialite, her father as a co-founder of Buttermilk Ski Area, her mother as a member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) in World War II.

Samantha Bee, a straight-faced, hilariously fake news correspondent on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” will leave “TDS” to host her own show on TBS. The new series produced by TBS is “planned as a platform for Bee to apply her smart and satirical point of view to current and relevant issues. In addition to hosting, Bee will serve as executive producer on the show, along with (her husband Jason) Jones.”

This is the second TBS project involving Bee and Jones. The network recently announced an as yet untitled 10-episode comedy created and executive-produced by the couple, inspired by their own experiences with family getaways. Jones will star as the head of a family taking a road trip to Florida.

Samantha Bee, photo provided by TBS.

This announcement likely signals that Bee was not considered a potential successor to Jon Stewart, who recently announced his departure from “TDS.” Expect a batch of additional announcements this spring as that show is reconfigured.

Brad Remington, a former Denver TV news director, will begin March 9 as the new VP/General Manager of Scripps’ KMGH-TV, ending the station’s five-month period without a GM.

The move marks a return to the Denver ABC affiliate for Remington, who served as managing editor there from 1989-1996, until he took his first news director post in Albuquerque.

He later moved to news director positions in St. Louis, Denver (at Fox’s KDVR) and Phoenix. He left KTVK in Phoenix to return to Denver a few years ago. He has been running a franchised chiropractic business in the interim.

Remington replaces Byron Grandy, who left the station abruptly in September after six years as general manager. Remington’s name had been circulated in recent weeks as the likely candidate for the job.

His first order of business: The station is currently without a news director, since Jeff Harris moved to the Scripps station WEWS in his hometown of Cleveland last year.

Scripps’ Steve Wasserman, interim manager at KMGH, released this statement:

“Denver is a high-profile market in the company, and Brad possesses the unique combination of management style, editorial judgment and knowledge of the local area to serve the community and to meet the needs of advertisers,” said Steve Wasserman, vice president and divisional general manager for Scripps. “Brad has the right entrepreneurial spirit and understanding of the changing habits of consumers to drive KMGH in the right direction for our news products across multiple platforms and customized sales solutions for area businesses.”

Patricia Arquette, who recently won an Oscar for her performance in “Boyhood,” is now saddled with one of those law enforcement TV roles that requires tension-building in a conservative business suit: either staring at a video monitor looking concerned, talking on a cellphone looking concerned, or hustling in the field while wearing an FBI bullet-proof vest, looking extra concerned.

In “CSI: Cyber” premiering March 4 on CBS (9 p.m. locally on KCNC), she plays Special Agent Avery Ryan, a tough woman whose life and career were disrupted by a hacker some years ago, now in charge of chasing cyber criminals. The first case concerns kidnappings via baby monitor technology and she’s concerned! Always thinking one step ahead, magically able to connect theoretical dots, surrounded by talented people who likewise thrill to solving puzzles and outwitting bad guys. Always just another “CSI” spinoff.

Obviously the “CSI” brand is terrifically successful and cloning another version, laden with computer lingo and big data, is probably a smart move. With James Van der Beek (Dawson!) doing the macho running, diving, throwing work, and Peter MacNicol doing his worry-wart thing, Arquette is free to stare into the middle distance, mulling.

As Avery (Arquette) announces at the end of the first hour, upon closing a case, she likes to go somewhere special to think, and soulfully stare, pondering her personal hacking case that will thread through the episodes. It’s all too familiar — and a waste of an Academy Award winner.

Joanne Ostrow has been watching TV since before "reality" required quotation marks. "Hill Street Blues" was life-changing. If Dickens, Twain or Agatha Christie were alive today, they'd be writing for television. And proud of it.